Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

Don't judge a book by its cover. My cake has quite some much blush on the cheeks. I can't tell if it's really ugly or not bad for a first try. But it's pretty good. If you can forget about the ongoing heat. I took on the challenge and here goes: Rosewater and rasberry Battenberg cake! Don't overreact, folks, it sounds much better than it looks, or even tastes, for that matter. It's all my fault, for not taking the time to do things right. In this heat, turning the oven on was utter torture. My every move is currently in slow motion. Writing this text is exaustingly painfull. I am exagerating, though. A little bit. This cake in slightly cooler weather and with a cup of tea would probably be delighting. Just thinking about tea is making me hot. I know there are a few jealous people out there who are still waiting for the sun to appear with it's share of higher temperatures. I am truly sorry for you guys, I guess it's all or nothing.

The pink brown spongecake was coloured with actual (frozen, hem) rasberries, no food colouring in my house! But fresh berries like these red currants are better suited for decoration. And I would never have thought of a pink marzipan stripe in the middle there, but here in France, the kind that's easy to find is always tri-coloured: pink/white/green. I wasn't going to buy three packs just to get enough of the plain colour!